The Archbishop of Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Matthew Hassan Kukah, has fired the salvo that the country is slowly turning into a vast national morgue due to incessant killings and widespread violence.
In his Easter Sunday message, Bishop Kukah expressed deep concern over Nigeria’s deteriorating security situation.
In the past two weeks, more than 140 persons were wasted in Benue and Plateau States by suspected killer herdsmen.
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He, therefore, appealed to President Bola Tinubu to rid Nigerians from the forces of darkness and bring them down from the cross of cynicism.
According to Kukah, “The road to our collective discouragement in Nigeria has been laid by marauders, murderers, savages and ravenous predators who threaten to overrun our nation.”
“Mr. President, hunger, sickness and desolation stalk the land. We still believe removing the subsidies was the right decision.
“We note that the country now has a huge volume of resources in its domestic reserves.
“For over ten years now, farming has become one of the most hazardous pre-occupations in our country,” he said.
The Bishop warned that mere palliative distribution diminishes the dignity of citizens, saying that Nigerians have remained between the rock of self-doubt and the hard place of hopelessness.
“Make food security a fundamental human right to all citizens. Mr. President, please bring us down from this painful cross of hunger,” he pleads.
Some years back, Kukah explained that some of the public officers confessed that they brought the current killers into the country as a strategy for upstaging the government of the day and to gain power, saying, “strange as it may sound, today we have watched as the cancer of insecurity and violence have metastasized. Now, this cancer threatens the very foundation of our common humanity.”
He added that the bandits have not only become embedded in every sphere of the lives of Nigerians, but threaten to destroy all that holds the communities together.
He stressed that this self-destructive cancer had invaded the communities and kidnapping is a now a “dog whistle” for undermining the very structure and foundation of the country, and now hang on the cross at the mercy of the forces of darkness.
“Taken together, they have placed our country outside the purveyor of human civilization. Across the entire country, every day, innocent citizens are kidnapped and held under the most inhuman conditions. A dark pall of death hangs languidly from north to south.
“It is impossible to find a home, a family, or a community that has not been caught in the cusp of this savagery. Now, Mr. President, Nigeria is reaching a breaking point.
“The nation is gradually becoming a huge national morgue. Mr. President, with a greater sense of urgency, hasten to bring us down from this cross of evil,” he appealed.
He added, “Mr. President, we all admit that you neither erected this cross nor did you effect our collective crucifixion.
“Notwithstanding, Nigerians have been dangling and bleeding on this cross of pain and mindless suffering for too long.
“A culture of cynicism and self-doubt over our capacity to secure peace for ourselves pervades our land. Indeed, a majority of our citizens feel that there is no hope in sight.
“However, for us as Christians, hope is the anchor on which we hang all our hopes (Heb. 6:19). Now is the time to re-enkindle and renew that hope.”
Kukah lamented that the journey to greatness is threatened and amid all of this, Christians were compelled to look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of their faith In times of deep moral and physical crises and are often tempted, stressing that they must learn to look up to the cross as the source of their boast.
